oh boy! a brand new journal!!

i saw a giggly two-year-old run all over the place without his shoes. those are the softest little pinkies i’ve ever seen!

broken conversations

loud whispers

drunken ramblings

high-pitched, deep-throated

voices that nights carry

so many times.

voices that prick

the ear

before sleep

pulls shut the eye

voices that have no language

only volumes

night winds magnify

nerul, thane

bangalore, uxbridge

when sleep mixes

with travelling voices

by strangers

in the night

someone

tell me why

i always think

it’s the street below

my window at home

so many times.

in spite of all my endeavours as a wannabe culinary perfectionist, there are many times when i have gone OOPS!!…

like when i burnt rice in the cooker, ran the blender without the blade in, used sugar instead of salt in something as unassuming as rice khichadi, blackened potatoes and carrots, almost turned my dry grinder into a spinach-sprinkler with the green paste flying all over the splashback tiles; i’ve even have had to boldly convert many of my would-be-pasta or noodle experiments into exotic cuisine tasted by no human before.

we all have our unique behaviour in the kitchen. as i have observed is with most people, i like to cook alone, and also take it seriously. even with my limited exposure to cooking during home-science classes at school, i preferred no helping hands. i guess i’ve always liked to think of myself as a neat cook, with all the ingredients arranged at-hands’-distance in their separate bowls, the frying pan ready only when i am.

i wouldn’t like to change that habit, especially because i’m extremely prone to the slightest distraction when i’m cooking, and as you can see when i’m distracted i can be really clumsy 🙂

during the initial months of my newly-married life, my only pastime, apart from experimenting with the interiors of our little home (like hanging floor-mats on the wall and bells on the staircase), was pestering my sister back home — who by the way, is a great cook herself — to mail me *practical recipes, or being heavily reliant on the world wide web for the same.

(*practical = very edible, tasty no-frills-dishes, best cooked by all mothers)

i have seen that the tastiest cookbook experiments are those that are also well-written. however, with my six-year-trained eyes of a copy editor, it has almost become impossible for me to get past to the end of a recipe, without having to spot a typo here, or catch a mismatched sentence or funny phrase there. to my surprise and often, disappointment, i even came across recipes that lose the main ingredient somewhere along the cooking procedure.

here are some classic examples: (represented as is in the original recipes)

a) add the salt according to the salt (go here, step #8, to check for yourself)
b) …then add the green leafy paste to the the pan,mix well,allow it to cook for few minutes until the boils appear. (ugh! :-o)
c) wash bitter gourd into small pieces (huh?)

tch tch, no doubt, for someone like me who’s learning to cook, the recipes i’ve found online so far have really been *face-savers*, but someone out there definitely needs to do some serious re-writing.

according to me, every ingredient is sacred to a dish, and contributes to the complete sensory eating experience. perhaps an ideal recipe is that which is …well, very cook-friendly, and takes you through the entire procedure visually in your head, before you actually get down to cooking it yourself.

hmm, i feel like toying with some recipe-writing myself. but boy, am i glad that i did not have to find my way to praveen‘s heart through his stomach 😉

sitting alone,
doing nothing,
spring comes
and the grass grows by itself.

well, spring is here, and it’s more than just the deep green grass that’s refreshing to the eye; with all the colourful tulips, chrysanthemums, rhododendrons, fluffy yellow roses, poppies and rich blue forget-me-nots peeping out from every house patio and garden.

as a kid i took them for granted. perhaps that was because my mother tended to them while my sister and i were away at school. to me, they were just a lot of mud, leaves and moss that occupied space. occasionally, they would also flower. i never got in their way, neither did they, until my mother decided it was time i helped her take care of them too. i remember being forced out of the house with a hose to water all of them every weekend, and i hated the routine.

we lived in a ground-floor flat of a four-storey building that housed fourteen other apartments — in them were some newly married couples, while most were young parents. in the thirteen years that followed, the couples soon grew into little families of three or four, while the kids soon outgrew their shoes and clothes and games of lagori, dabaispice and jhattapatti; they grew taller than their parents and their friends and destinies changed; some flew away to the usa to get a higher education or a greencard, others just got married. as for the parents in the society, they grew older and wealthier. to accommodate their hard-earned material wealths such as their many cars and scooters, the earth all around and in the compound was cemented. the plants couldn’t take the dust and noise, and died, each one of them.

nothing was the same anymore. it felt like the soul of our house had been plucked out and thrown away. my mother never talked about them again, and years later the plants were long forgotten. however, my dislike for the cold house seemed to increase… so much that when i left for bangalore i literally told my father i would not return until he decided to move into a brighter, livelier house. sure enough, within a year, we did. but the plants never came home.

six months after my marriage today, each time i watch alan titchmarsh on bbc’s gardening programmes, i remember how much it meant to my mom — how she always got sackfuls of helpful tips, red fertile mud and saplings or seeds from the maalis (gardeners) in lonavala, or even from the few friends who shared the same interest. i wondered what joy she must have felt to watch her plants grow, and then realised i could experience the same if i really wanted to…

with the entire population in the united kingdom encouraged to grow plants and trees…free seeds are given away with nestle’s breakfast cereals, and even with tomatoes at sainsbury’s. gardening is literally child’s play here, with huge stores like homebase, b&q and focus for everything you need for your garden, inspirational flower shows for designer gardens, and of course, my favourite alan titchmarsh who makes it all seem so easy.

four months ago, praveen and i bought our first plant from the “reduced” section (the plants here are usually well past their ‘growing time’ and require immediate re-potting and attention) at homebase, because i wasn’t sure if i’d be able to take care of them. today there are four of them in the bathroom — the only place in our house that receives maximum sunlight, two little rose plants (yellow and mauve) that praveen gifted on our wedding-day (celebrated every month ;-), my pet ferns, and twelve tomato plants in a huge pot outside.

my love for gardening seems to be growing along with the plants themselves; i find it very calming, and i guess what i like most about them is how they just demand your love. we still look for new plants to buy from the “reduced” sections. because each time i nurse them back to health i cannot help but think this:

amma, i think i have your hands.

my mother sent some of my favorite home-made pickle and garam masala along with mahesh and vidya, who are on their ‘honeymoon tour’ of europe.

they arrived last week, and amid exciting though hectic itineraries such as exploring some of the streets and palaces of london with my friend prakash advani, who was also here after his cebit visit; trying to make the best of our cosy little one-bedroom home to accommodate everyone; rushing before sunrise (thrice) to the netherlands embassy with praveen, for a visa to amsterdam, just in time for the four-day easter holiday, i left the packets untouched.

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we came back from our brief dutch vacation late last evening. as i unpacked our travel clothes and inspected my brand new growing interest(s) — house plants — my eyes fell on the packets that my mother had sent.

i opened them slowly, one-by-one, savouring lungfulls of the familiar aroma that quickly filled the whole house. as usual, amma’s packaging was excellent; not one, not two, but three neat plastic covers to keep the pickle and masala flavours from escaping. i promptly transferred the contents into bottles of my own, and into whatever plastic dabbas i could find.

all the packets done but one — curry leaves powder — a spicy favourite best enjoyed with hot rice and ghee or dosas, her own tasty invention made of curry leaves that had gone too dry. i patiently untied the knots on the tiny plastic covers, and as the packet finally emerged, i found myself smiling, despite a slow hesitant tear that rolled down my cheek.

between those sheets of plastic, crisp and intact — perhaps due to the vaccuum that the taut plastic created — was a piece of onion peel. it had travelled all the way from my country, from the kitchen in my home. i held it in my palm for a while, and then, i crushed it and threw it away.

i thought this could never happen to me, but right now, i guess i must confess…
i am a little homesick.

ever observed people watching a game of table tennis? their eyes focussed on the ball and the hand of the players as they tackle the opponent’s reflexes with their own, smashing the ping-pong ball against the table, neatly spinning it with a backhand or forehand, or dodging a losing point…as the indoor sport echoes with a distinctive tock-tock-tock of the flying white dot.

yesterday, praveen and i went to watch a similar game. no, we even participated in it for a while. only here, there were many many players, and the jumping white dot was replaced by a monetary figure that kept increasing in its value, feverishly. the points were decided by a black-suited umpire who handled the players as smoothly as the gel that held back his hair. when the number reached its highest value, he brought down a hammer, and yelled “SOLD”.

this served as an indication to the more men in black suits standing on either side of the umpire. armed with long notepads, and a pen that seemed to have a life of its own – scribbling every number spoken in those fractions of a second. one of them then rushed to the player who had raised his hand to the highest number. that hand would then sign a cheque, and willingly part with a bank balance that was probably earned over an entire lifetime of hard work.

yes, it was an auction.

nothing short of a game that is amazingly well synchronised, like a pattern…
the reward here is a house. the auctioneer (our gel-haired umpire) lures the players with information about the house, throws in a number and every person according to his or her capacity makes a bid for that number. the value of the number increases to match the profit margin that the men in black suits have to make, and sure enough, the bidders respond. when the bidders respond, the number again goes up. once again, the bidders respond. there comes a point when the number now borders on a fine line between a visibly increased profit margin, and a shadow of greed and impracticality, mischief dancing in the auctioneer’s eyes.

“come on, make that a round figure, surely you can spare that little extra”

the bidder, blind to everything but the house, raises his hand again reluctantly. another voice in the audience, a new one, challenges the number, with a higher amount. the first bidder cannot back out having come so far, and promises a bigger number. the duel continues; adrenalin racing, hands come up even faster. finally, the gavel strikes the board. the first bidder gets the house, now for a price too ridiculous to even be discussed anymore.

what was it about the auction that to us didn’t seem to fit? what was it about the houses here, that prompted old hands that had worked hard to rise to just any number thrown at them? is it all about “winning”?

seven such houses were already sold, each with the same intensity or more. there were five more houses to go. but now, thoroughly intrigued, and amused by the game, praveen and i decided we had had enough. raising our hands to the auctioneer, we waved goodbye, and walked out, grateful to have our sanity (read, bank balance) intact.

each time i picked a new book, i always wondered why i almost always never miss the acknowledgements section, instead of skipping it and getting on with the story like most people do. when i had ladies coupe in my hands, i did just that.

however, something about this new routine made me very uncomfortable. so midway through the book, i went back to the i-owe-my-thanks-to section. the last three lines by the author on that page goose pimples all over my skin, as i read it over and over again:

“…Uncle Mani in New York for cheering me on. and Uncle Mani in Mundakotukurissi, Kerala, for opening the doors of the village library and the world of Malayalam literature for me. To hold my hand, as always, there were my parents Soumini and Bhaskaran…”

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imagine reading a book about your homeland sitting far away at a quiet library in london. the novel you find is very engrossing, the author, a fast-emerging writer. you flip the pages to the front to read more about the author and out of nowhere you suddenly face another revelation: she’s your cousin!

it happened to me. half-way through ladies coup?, i discovered anita nair and i were related — children of first cousins who were very close in their childhood. they grew up, got married and simply, drifted apart, busy moulding the shape of their own little families. i recognised the uncles she’d named, mundakotukurissi was also the name of my hometown, soumini and bhaskaran had called on the day on my wedding…this was the anita nair i had never met when i was visiting kerala.

i wanted to write to her rightaway, and congratulate her on her being who she was. i wanted to shatter the looming silence of the library and grab the nearest unassuming englishman, hey guess what! my cousin is a writer.

but what would anita think of me? would she be too busy to bother? would she think of me as a pile-on relative to her success, and crush the new-found pride with which i rushed to tell my only friends and family here – rashmi, zubin and praveen? or would she be happy to hear from me? what would i write to a writer? i swallowed my questions, and decided to mail her anyway:

hi

umm, how do i begin conversation with a *cousin* i’ve never met?

ok, i’ll do that by introducing myself:
my name is radhika nair, daughter of p k janardhan…from shoranur. achchan had told me long ago, that “bhaskaran uncle’s daughter is a writer in new york, and she’s in the advertising field…”

perhaps i was too young then to bother to find out more, besides, for me you were ‘just another cousin’ and we had never met, leave alone spend time together.

i got married this november 25th (your parents called to wish me too) and i’m now in london with my husband praveen. i was waiting for him in the library yesterday and my eyes fell upon a new section in the library — imaginasian — works by asian writers.

ladies coup? was the first i picked…i guess it was the title that got me curious, not the author, not the cover. and sure enough, the characters in the novel really gripped me (here i had planned to surprise praveen with flowers i’d bought when he arrived – being my first valentine day 😉 – and i didnt even notice when he sneaked to my table, thanks to your book!)

it was only when i reached midway through the book that i decided to read about the author. when i saw your reference to uncle mani in new york and mundakotukurissi in the acknowledgements section, i sat up, amazed.

we are related!!

i just want to congratulate you on being such a good writer. i know you might have a busy schedule, but i hope to hear from you soon.

regards
radhika

two days and a slightly-dampening enthusiasm later, she replied 🙂

this may, when she’s here in london for the launch of ladies coup?, she’s offered to take time off her busy schedule just to meet me.

gee, suddenly i wonder…am i going to meet a cousin i’ve never met before, or get a peek into a writer’s life whose book i’m just about to finish?

my adventures in london have officially begun.

all i wanted to do was reach uxbridge station, at a shop where praveen said he would be waiting for me. for a distance that requires one bus and 10 minutes, it took me three hours, and three buses. just because i took a detour to rashmi‘s house on the way.

my digicam ready to catch anything that looked colourful, having exchanged lunch and giggles with rashmi, and brimming with excitement about travelling all alone, i did something that is unfailingly characteristic of me: i caught the right bus from the wrong bus stop.

london is neatly divided into *zones. i live in zone 4 and was asked to take the 207. and i did just that, except that i forgot to cross the road. travelling all the way till its final destination – one hour, one way – on a bus pass that actually was not supposed to take me till there, i thought of praveen who had taken 30 minutes off his busy office-hours and would now be twiddling his thumbs outside the shop, wondering what was taking me so long.

shrinking into my jacket to hide from the cold, i strained to look outside the huge frost-coated windows, as the rain and fog did nothing to speed up the inching traffic. later as my eyes got adjusted to the patterns on the glass, i found out what was adding to the minutes. major roadside construction work, just what i needed 😐

i resigned to my self-imposed condition, and decided to wait for the bus to take me home at its own sweet pace. the helpful bus driver advised me to take a 607 that would reach me home faster. since i never had been on a double-decker (in london) before, i decided to look for a seat in the almost vacant-bus upstairs. here i met my second adventure for the day.

a young schoolboy of about 13 or 15, who looked worn out and bogged by what seemed to be his schoolbag. something about the boy made him look apart from the seven or nine other noise-making students who got into the bus along with him. i shrugged my suspicions away, telling myself that he must have had a bad day at school, and that nothing else was wrong with the picture. but it was.

seated on the adjacent row facing the glass, he put his head down and slumped in his seat. was he unwell? was he drugged? as his schoolmates got off the bus, the deafening noise changed into a frightening silence as i watched this boy from the corner of my eye. he had eastern features hiding behind a very-english appearance, tall, thin eyes and yellow skin. there were just the two of us in the upper deck of the bus now, and my faithful woman-intuition told me that the boy knew he had been noticed.

pulling out a shaky finger after uncrossing his hands, he slowly scribbled on the frosty window pane. in an handwriting that looked like the font used by horror-movie posters, he drew a little figure, and wrote haltingly:

“please….help….me…”

that did it. i had had more than enough excitement for the day. it was freezing and i was in a terrible hurry to empty my bladder. and then this boy was asking for attention. part of me wanted to ask him if he was alright and if he needed help, part of me was also terribly afraid of what might happen…

as the dilemma raged in my head, the boy stood up and painfully walked away. i should have been relieved as i watched him go from my window on the upper deck, but he turned to look back at me! and instead i felt a deep sense of guilt grip me as i saw him fully for the first and last time.

i guess the most memorable adventure is the most recent one.

i once absent-mindedly boarded a train for secunderabad; had an inch-long pin in my foot for four months because no one would believe me, until i got an xray to prove it; missed my bombay-bound train from bangalore, faced nasty interviewers and got lost a thousand times, and each time i felt things couldn’t get any worse. but perhaps this one wins a nomination for the ‘scariest experience’ award.

i’ll never forget that sad haunting face, and i sometimes feel i should have asked him what was wrong. but i was terribly afraid then. i wonder how anyone else would react…

what would you do?

“we have decided to call you autumn…” said one of praveen’s friends who’d come to receive us at the airport last evening. i smiled to myself at the strange declaration, more amused than surprised; it instantly reminded me though, of my friend sanjeev who sometimes fondly called me ‘leaf’.

as we waited for the taxi, i noticed how memories of close friends and relations haunt you ever so intensely, the farther you physically move away from them. it could take the form of a person, a voice, a chuckle, a nod, a wave, or simply, a memory.

i looked out of the window. one of the first things i observed were the bright street lamps. i looked ahead and found that the cars on the other side (of the motorway) had bright headlights too. do lights look brighter in cold weather, i wondered…

before i could turn to ask anyone, the taxi slowed to a halt. ten minutes from the airport, we’d arrived at our destination.

it looked just like the typical ‘my house’ i’d scribbled in my kindergarten notebook with crayons; like most other kids of my age then would…brown-red-brick house, white-framed windows, red sloping roof, and white-painted wood fence circling a green lawn outside the main door. it smelled of winter; i looked around and it seemed as if i’d accidentally landed in one of charles dickens‘s illustrated winter-setting stories for children.

the trees were barren and cold, it was dark and nobody stopped for any one. this is it, i said to myself, a little excited, a little curious, and braving the biting cold…this is going to be my new home. i thought of my new friends rashmi, zubin and girish, waiting inside to meet their best friend‘s new ‘wife’; i thought of my mother who would remind me to step inside the house “with the right foot first”. praveen echoed my thoughts as he quickly unloaded all the luggage from the taxi into the house and paid the driver.
“come, they’re waiting…right foot first!”